China is developing its first national single mobile payment platform. It's been created to lift domestic information consumption and boost economic growth, and could replace cash, credit and debit cards.

The system has been undergoing trials since the end of last year,
China Daily reports.

Very few countries possess an operating national payment
platform, Colin Light, China Digital Consulting Leader for
PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong told China Daily. China’s
mobile platform based on Near Field Communication technology
(NFC) has a bright future and potentially could abolish cash and
plastic cards.

Li said 21st century mobile finance is undergoing a
standardization process to integrate mobile payment providers
into a single system. The NFC-platform “provides a solid
infrastructure foundation to help China boost domestic
information consumption and make the sector a new driver for
economic growth.”

"The biggest obstacle for banks and mobile operators to
operate in a unified way is to build scale. You need a scale
advantage to reach wide acceptance of payments," said Light.

Wang Weidong, an analyst with iResearch Group, said that despite
heavy support from the People's Bank of China, the NFC-based
payments so far cannot compete with other internet payment
systems simply because “there are not many NFC-enabled
smartphones in China”.

“To promote proximity payment, you need people to buy mobile
devices that are tailor-made to use this technology,” Wang
said, adding that it would imply changing the habits of people
who use traditional forms of payment.

NFC technology enables users to make quick payment by tapping a
NFC-equipped device, such as smartphone, on a special terminal at
checkout.

So far the volume of payments done in this way in China is quite
small, only 0.8 percent, which could be explained by the small
number of NFC-terminals, said the iResearch Group. In 2013
third-party mobile payment transaction surged 700 percent to
reach $197 billion.